


Endure Not Yet a Breach

by Wizardheart83 (Plant_Murderer)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, The Golden Trio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 23:57:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17415023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plant_Murderer/pseuds/Wizardheart83
Summary: In the immediate aftermath of the battle of Hogwarts, The golden trio struggle with coming back to a workable kind of normal, especially when normal means separating and fulfilling individual responsibilities after months of collective world saving. A brief look at that moment and their lives, together and apart.





	Endure Not Yet a Breach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lola_bananas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lola_bananas/gifts).



For one week after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry, Ron, and Hermione separated only when absolutely necessary.

Ron and Hermione found Harry in the Gryffindor common room not long after he left the hall. They split up to shower and get sandwiches of their own, but then picked up where they’d left off, more or less; living together and depending on each other. 

It was easy at first. There was rubble to clear and rebuilding to do. There was the searching of the castle for traces of dark magic and for any unwelcome visitors that might have lingered or crept in when the wards had fallen.  There were bodies to find; and pockets of living students who’d hidden inside the castle rather than attempt escape. 

There was too much to do to leave Hogwarts, in Harry’s considered and confessed opinion. Too much to fear in being left alone, he knew privately and instinctively. He couldn’t imagine sleeping in Grimmauld Place or wherever else he could go now that he was more or less a free adult. The thought of waking up and going through life alone was unsettling. 

It felt strange to imagine going about a whole day without seeing his friends. He’d died for everyone present during the battle, maybe for everyone in the wizarding world. That was something he’d always known he would do for Ron and Hermione. It had been a fact for him, like his name and the color of the sky. He’d even had some practice over the years. Directly sacrificing himself for a school and a world full of people felt different. It was odd to talk to people now knowing that they likely carried some trace of his sacrifice with them, invisible but binding, even if Voldemort would never rise again and be pained when he touched them. 

Harry had died.Voldemort had died. Even now, wherever souls went after death Voldemort’s was that helpless and horrible thing that he’d seen with Dumbledore in King’s Cross. Even now a lifetime that he’d only barely considered was spread before him, and the whole of the life he’d lived already had been touched by the revelations of the past weeks and months. Only with his best friends did Harry feel like the person he’d been before watching Snape’s memories. He craved that feeling more than he felt comfortable admitting.

That was fine for a while. Once the first efforts at pulling one or another of them away had been met with polite and reflexive refusals, people took them as the unit that they were and left them to their own devices. They worked near each other during the days. In the evenings, they pushed cushioned armchairs into a group so small that there was only room for a chess board in the middle. They rested, warm, well fed, and safe.

If Ron and Hermione noticed that Harry sometimes stared at them and the world in general as if it might be a dream that would fade upon waking, for six nights neither asked about it. 

* * *

 

In those first days, Hermione was busy enough coming to terms with all that she’d seen and done.  She had left school and been a kind of fugitive. She loved Ron and he loved her back. She’d wanted badly to hate him when he left, but against all odds, he’d come back. She’d been betrayed, captured, and tortured. Above and through it all, she had been more terrified than she hoped she would ever be again in her entire life. She’d lied, stolen, bled, and lost. They’d won. It was enough to occupy a mind like hers for a lifetime. There was so much to understand and make sense of. 

She wasn’t blind to the way Harry fought sleep or woke as if he did not rightly expect to. She also saw how Ron stood sometimes on the edge of the space between them and the family he’d been born to, unsure of how or if to cross it without Harry and herself coming with him. She knew that their situation was untenable but she just … she  _ needed  _ them. She needed them as fiercely and selfishly as they needed her. They knew her better than anyone else in life, likely even better than her parents had. They’d been through it all together, so she stayed. 

She tried to think about what to do with their lives. She tried to imagine what could possibly help them survive separating for whole hours at a time. She wondered what she would do when she was alone for long enough to make individual plans again.

* * *

 

Ron knew that he couldn’t be the first to step away, not after the last time he’d left, but as the sixth day following the battle came to a close, it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the world outside of their unit. 

He supposed that it was easy for Harry and Hermione to linger. Their families weren’t across the room from them. His was, and as much as he desperately needed his friends, his parents and brothers and sister needed Ron. He wanted to be with them again, to actually be with them and not just part of the trio stopping by to check up. 

They’d been separate from his family since they’d first planned to go off with Harry, and he didn’t regret that, but as the shock wore off and the school benefited from a lot of people and magic working long days, he found himself missing the roles he’d left behind. His family had lost Fred. They’d never see their son and brother and twin again. Ron couldn’t remain separate from them now, but he’d suffered things that they hadn’t. In so many ways, he’d lost himself as well.

He’d had his soul corrupted by a hateful abomination. He’d freed a dragon from Gringotts after breaking in. He’d nearly lost Hermione and Harry. One after another, at the same time, his best friends had been close to death. He’d heard Hermione’s screams. He’d seen Harry, unmoving in Hagrid’s arms. He needed to be one of three as much as he had to be one of… seven? Of six? Of eight? It was the least funny riddle that had ever been told, his family without his brother. It was the most impossible thing in the world, his friends without him. He couldn’t break them again, but it seemed that something was being pulled to the point of breaking no matter what he did.

* * *

 

On the sixth night, it snapped.

 

“We can’t keep doing this,” Harry said, just as Hermione asked, “What happened in the forest, Harry,” and Ron blurted, “Maybe we could all go back to The Burrow”.  

 

They laughed awkwardly. 

 

They were seated in their clutch of armchairs before dinner. Everyone else had gone down to the great hall, or to the showers to clean up before dinner. Ron was sprawled across his chair with his head on the arm nearer to Hermione, who reached out and stroked his hair from time to time. She was folded up in her seat, her legs forming a pretzel like space where a book rested. Harry was sitting up, his feet under the small table where the chess board rested, a cup of tea in hands that were now visibly unsteady.  Ron shifted around so that he could tug lightly at the wrist of Harry’s robe, knowing that it would make the warm fabric brush his friend’s arm in as near to a hug as could be managed without more movement. Harry took a breath and set the cup down, half on the board, ignoring the grumbles of the pieces.

“Voldemort killed the horcrux in me, and because I freely chose to die, it cast the same protection mum did with me,” Harry said, answering Hermione. He moved to explain more but Hermione looked almost angry. 

“You were going to die and not say anything? Surrounded by death eaters; worse than alone? After everything, you just went to hand yourself over?” Hermione clarified. Her tone softened as she went. Her eyes brightened and even she was uncertain if the tears she blinked away were from sadness or frustration.

“It was the only way. It would have been harder if you’d known. You’d never have let me go and there wasn’t time to explain,” Harry replied. “Look at me. I’m here with you. I’m ok.” 

“Are you really ok?” Hermione asked. She looked at him intently for a long while before she faltered, collapsing a little into the softness at her back. “Are any of us ok?”

“We have to be, soon, don’t we?” Harry replied. “We can’t just keep living like the war isn’t over. We ended it.”  

“So now I just… try and find my parents?” Hermione said. “Even with their memories back they might never forgive me. I altered their minds and stole their lives. What if they’re happy where they are? What if I’m not enough like the person they’ll remember for it to matter?” 

“You did it to protect them. If anyone will understand that, it’s your parents. Might not be easy, but you tried to make them happy. They’ll work out what they want to do next once they remember. ‘Sides, you’re still you, humongous bit of ‘light reading’ and all” Ron said. “Probably already half thinking about getting in at the ministry and changing things.” 

“The last time we left Harry alone for an hour he walked off to martyr himself,” Hermione snapped.  Harry let his head fall back against the chair, raising a hand briefly in protest, but he couldn’t actually argue her point. “How can I think of changing the world? Saving it nearly broke us.” 

“Just nearly. We’re all here,” Ron said. “Though mate, if you could put in writing that you’ll never do that again I’d appreciate it.” 

“I’d offer an unbreakable vow, but that’d defeat the point, wouldn’t it,” Harry said, aiming slightly narrowed eyes at the space between his friends before rolling them and letting it go. If anyone could tease him about his sacrifice it would be them. They’d each have done the same thing he had. They’d walked with him for every step until he’d had to go on alone. 

They were quiet for a while before Harry spoke again. “I used the resurrection stone in the forest, to see my parents, Sirius, and Remus before the end. They were still together and they still cared. I don’t think dying or leaving broke them. We’ve done this before. We managed summer holidays, didn’t we?” 

“Parts of them,” Ron corrected though he nodded agreement. “It’s been ages since then, feels like. We’ve all got more nightmares now.”

“Being together doesn’t stop them. It doesn’t help anyone else either,” Hermione said. “Not my parents, or the Weasleys, or Remus and Tonks’s son.” Her words hung in the air for a while before she added to them. “I don’t know if I can go back to my parents again. Not to stay. Harry, are you going back to Grimmauld place?” 

“Don’t know if I can, honestly. Maybe the Leaky Cauldron for a while. Certainly not with the Dursleys. Should probably check in on them,” Harry replied. 

“We should get a place together,” Ron said, then sat up in his chair to hold up hands against their immediate denials. “Not like we have been, not to stay together all the time, just someplace to keep our stuff and have a place to go where we can be just us.” Ron reasoned, “Or Us, with Ginny, Neville, and Luna sometimes, once everyone’s out of school. Doesn’t have to be forever. ”

“That’s a bit brilliant,” Harry said, slowly. “I was going to need a house anyway, and I don’t have anywhere to rush off too, so I’d be staying there most at first. It’d give you two a place while we’re working out jobs, and NEWTS and things as well. I’d have a place to bring Teddy when he’s a bit older...” 

“I could take my things out of storage, and out of my bag,” Hermione added dreamily, “I wouldn’t need a room at the inn or have to stay with my parents.”

“Could have stayed at the Burrow” Ron couldn’t help pointing out. Then he pictured his mum throwing herself into caring for Harry and Hermione. He imagined the rest of his family, subtly pushing himself and Hermione to settle on a future together, and maybe even doing the same with Harry and Ginny, though the pair had barely done more than hold hands and catch eyes across the common room in the past week. He felt the pull again to be them, their band of redheads, easily known and kindly regarded.  He didn’t argue when Hermione shook her head. 

“I think I'd like some time alone, after dinner, for a while,” Hermione said as if testing out the words. “I’ll still come up to the dorm tonight to sleep, but tomorrow... I should get started planning for Australia, and I guess it’ll be Professor McGonagall that I’ll need to talk to about finishing up here.”

“I’ll sit with Ginny at dinner, and Luna,” Harry said, smiling a little nervously at the thought. “Bet I could find someone to ask about buying a house, or appeasing the goblins after what we did. Loads of people to write to.  We can meet at the Leaky Cauldron in three days, for dinner, and I’ll catch you up on house hunting. Let us know what she says, ‘Mione. ” 

“You both know where I'll be till then,” Ron said, getting carefully to his feet. “Don’t be afraid to stop by. Mum loves you both, you know.” 

Harry stood and walked towards the door. He expected to feel something as he stepped out into the corridor on his own. He expected a sense of loss, or the overwhelming memory of going down towards the hall as he walked out to die. Neither came. Like leaving for the summer, he knew he’d see them again soon. They were still a team, still a unit, even if they separated. He needed to believe that, he realized, almost as much as he’d needed to be with them over the last days. Time would tell. 

In the common room, Ron and Hermione shared a shy, but lingering kiss. When they came down, a few minutes after Harry had entered the hall on his own, they were holding hands. They let go at the door, as Hermione went towards their (former?) head of house, and Ron joined his family. If anyone was surprised that Ron sat near his mother and father, rather than at the edge of the group with Harry, Ginny, Luna, and Xenophilius Lovegood, no one said as much.  

Ginny leaned on Harry’s arm. Luna sent knowing smiles to them, Ron, and Hermione. The world moved forward. 

 

**Three weeks later:**

Harry and Ginny sat by the fire in the Burrow and Harry showed her pictures of the houses that he, Ron, and Hermione liked best. They were all fairly large, five-bedroom affairs that would allow for guests, and privacy. It was too soon to say openly that perhaps the house would be Harry’s alone someday, or could be theirs together, but Harry couldn’t help wanting to choose one that she’d like. The funerals were done, and the tears were growing less frequent. Hermione was still in Australia, and Ron was sitting outside with George- offering silent, but needed support.  Harry would see Ron at dinner, but they hadn’t spoken much in days. It was fine. Harry knew that Ron would crash with him in his room in the next couple of days. They’d pick the house that Hermione and Ginny liked best and then start moving their things. Hermione would come back to as much of a home as they could create for her. They’d make sure of it. 

 

**Three months later:**

Hermione attended classes from home, flooing into the great hall each morning after breakfast and leaving in the evenings when she was done studying in the library. Harry and Ron did specialized training with the aurors, and Harry ran a community defense club, not unlike the DA, on alternating Saturdays. The work was hard, but at the end of each day they met, however briefly at the fireplace in their home before going to make supper, flooing to see family, or apparating to spend the evening caring for a godson. They still laughed together at breakfast some days over the number of bookshelves Hermione had put into the dining room. Harry and Hermione danced to the music on the wireless in the kitchen some evenings. They let Ron cut in when he asked. They invited Ginny and Luna to join them if they happened to be there as well. No one minded when Neville would rather watch, or change the station in the middle to catch a broadcast on gardening tips.  They danced, worked, and lived joyfully, together and apart.

 

**Three years, Two weddings later:**

When Ron and Hermione moved out, it was into a house they’d actually looked at together years before. Business at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes was doing quite well, helped along by the continuing rumors of Ron’s insanity since Rita Skeeter had reported on his leaving the aurors. They also got a discount, because saving the world, kickstarting major reforms in the ministry, and making people laugh were all excellent ways to end up being generally well liked by certain people. Harry and Ginny’s would always be their first home, but that felt right. Harry and Ginny hosted most of the get-togethers for their friends from school. 

For the others, for some holidays and birthdays, they still filled the Burrow with laughter, with food, and with family. The time for subtraction in the math of Ron’s first family was done, not to be resumed for decades. Teddy, Hermione and her parents, and Harry had been welcome additions. Though there were spaces that could never be filled, the presence of those they’d lost was most with them when they came together. Death could not sever all ties.  

Threaded through their lives as son and brother, as daughter-in-law and sister-in-law, as son-in-law and brother-in-law, as parts of the Weasley clan were other, different bonds. The distinctions that had plagued Ron in the first week after the battle seemed increasingly silly as time went on. Of course, he was one of three. Of course, he was one of nine, of ten, of fourteen even, and being both could not break either. The pair within the trio, the trio within the increasing multitude, it was the best kind of riddle. It was as natural as breathing even when it was hard. Ron, Hermione, and Harry were living and solving it daily. None of them would have it any other way.

  
  


**Thirty years, Five children, and Several grandchildren later:**

At the center of a sprawling family were three people who’d fought for the first seven years of their life together. They spent more time apart than not some weeks. They had jobs and children, and those children had children. They had more nieces and nephews than any of them liked to count, and even a great-niece. 

In the midst of their brilliant chaos, they never forgot the whole that had given them the chance to watch it all burst into being. They never stopped being grateful that they’d come together after defeating that mountain troll, after quarreling over a broom, after fighting a dragon, and so many other times that they sometimes lost count of them as well.

Who they were together deepened with time. Who they were apart could only do the same. The architects of change, of justice, and of joy grew practiced in the skills and aptitudes that had made saving the world possible. They lived abundantly in the world that they continued to shape. They were secure in the knowledge that at the heart of who they’d become were three kids who had an amazing talent for finding themselves together.  Always they’d be there, to help each other heal, to find meaning and understanding, and to face the next step of their ever-expanding adventure. 

**Author's Note:**

> "Our […] souls therefore, which are one,  
> Though I must go, endure not yet  
> A breach, but an expansion,  
> Like gold to airy thinness beat." – John Donne 
> 
> Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think.


End file.
